


aquamarine pencils

by letsgetalittleseethrough



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1940s, Asexual Bucky Barnes, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-01-30 17:57:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21432358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letsgetalittleseethrough/pseuds/letsgetalittleseethrough
Summary: Bucky scoffs. “Nobody actually thinks that, though.”
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 7
Kudos: 69





	1. chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [realityfallsapart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/realityfallsapart/gifts).

“‘Sup with you?”

Steve continues to gloomily eat his soup. Bucky didn’t even know it was possible to gloomily eat soup, but Steve continues to amaze him. 

After five-too-many more gloomy mouthfuls (because, OK, the soup isn’t exactly delicious, but Steve’s never been one to complain about what he’s eating - grateful to get anything at all, when some people don’t got nothin’, etc.) Bucky decides to take a stab at it. “That girl at the store? The one that recommended you buy that pencil, what was it-”

“Aquamarine,” Steve says gloomily, and then: “What’s it like?”

“It was kinda blue, I guess?” Bucky replies, baffled. “I-”

“Sex. Is it really as good as everyone says?”

_ How did they get from aquamarine pencils to this? _

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Bucky teases.

And Steve looks up at him and says earnestly, “Yeah. Yeah, I would, actually.”

And now Bucky has two choices, which boil down to “lie”, or “don’t lie”. 

And Steve’s his best friend, and so he says, “‘s not much to write home about. I’d rather watch you draw somethin’. You ain’t missin’ out, Stevie.”

And Steve’s face changes like a storm and he snaps, “You don’t have to lie to me,” and he puts his spoon down and walks out of the room.

And the thing is? Bucky wasn’t lying.

\--- 

“Someone touching you, though,” Steve says, when it’s dark and they’re curled up together because their apartment is apparently unaware that it’s June and not November. “Someone touching you, and you love them, and you make them feel good-”

“Bunch of romantic crap,” Bucky says, glad that Steve seems to have gotten over his hump. “You just take your clothes off, pass some time that’d be better spent at the pictures, pretend you’re enjoying yourself, God, I’m falling asleep just thinking about it…”

He fakes a yawn and grins down at Steve, who’s looking utterly betrayed. 

“Why’d you do it so much if you don’t even like it?”

He shrugs, then decides to get real and honest: “Maybe cause I keep waiting for it to feel like everyone says it’s supposed to. But everyone’s a liar - it being some life-changing experience, everybody wants that, but afterwards nobody actually thinks that, though. Nobody actually gets that ‘rush’. Bunch of romantic crap.”

Steve’s looking some cute-sort-of-confused, and Bucky nudges him with his shoulder. “So don’t you go rushing into things, OK?” 

“But say someone’s touching you,” Steve begins, and Jesus, was he not listening to Bucky’s heartfelt speech here? “-say someone’s touching you, and you’ve been imagining them touching you for so long, and they’re finally doing it, and you can’t believe it’s happening-”

Bucky wants to say something like, “Oh? And who you got your eye on, Stevie?” but Steve’s gone kinda sweaty and Bucky can feel a weird tension radiating off him and he’s not looking Bucky in the eyes and then he is and they’re kissing and- 

And-

And-

\--- 

“Stevie,” Bucky says for the sixth time that morning.

Steve’s poured too much milk into his cereal, and instead of drinking it from the bowl like he’d normally do, he’s sipping in one spoonful at a time with a sort of sadness that’d be almost comical if it wasn’t directed at Bucky. 

“Stevie, look-”

“I get it,” Steve cuts in, the spoon now something to be wielded in an emotional way, “I get it. You don’t like me. I shoulda asked first.”

He’s stopped speaking, but the spoon is still mid-air, so he hasn’t stopped speaking, not really.

“But did you really have to push me away like you were so- you looked horrified, I know some people think it ain’t natural, between two men, but I guess I thought  _ you _ would-”

“You were talking about touching, us touching and naked and wrapped around each other and-” and Bucky realises that he’s really not helping the situation, because Steve’s got tears in his eyes. “Stevie, it’s not you-”

“Then what is it, then? You think sex is all something people pretend to enjoy and meanwhile I’ve been… liking you… and what are we supposed to do?”

Steve shakes his head, an angry gesture, and then he hangs it. “No. No. You’re not interested. I’m sorry, takin’ it so personal… I just, really like you, Buck.”

“Does it have to involve sex?” 

“Liking me,” Bucky clarifies, after a bewildered silence, “does that have to involve sex?”

And Steve looks at him so confused, and his answer is clearly “Yes”.

But nobody - nobody-

And then like a bullet to the side Bucky thinks, “Oh. Maybe it’s just me.” 


	2. Chapter 2

Anyone he can find, really - girl, guy, whoever responds to the pretty words and that smile. He tries going rougher/ fucking like it’s just a different kind of fight/ going softer/ fucking like he loves them, like they mean something to him. It’s all sweat and noise and words that don’t matter and God, why is he doing this, why _ doesn’t _ he want to be doing this?

‘Cause if he keeps at it, right, something’ll fall into place, and he can have sex with Steve just like Steve wants. Nevermind that this probably isn’t how it works - attraction seems to start before both of you take your clothes off, “something about the anticipation of it,” Steve says one night, when Bucky’s stayed in for once, drunk and looking for answers. 

Steve also says, “you don’t have to keep doing this,” and Bucky doesn’t know how he can just _ tell_.

Steve also says, “I can love you without sex, Buck. God knows I’ve made it this far,” but that isn’t right and Bucky’s “not to be pitied, you asshole” and Steve needs to mean it and maybe Bucky needs to relax a little but now he’s realised he’s not right why wouldn’t he want to fix things?

\--- 

But he _ is _ attracted to Steve, just not in a way that makes him want to lick a path down his stomach, or bite at his neck. When he’s said somethin’ stupid that makes Steve laugh in that uncontrolled, so-hard-it-turns-into-a-coughing-fit way, he feels something that makes him want to brush Steve’s too-long hair out of his eyes, or throw his arm around him, or just-

Touch. Touch doesn’t have to be tied up in all of _ that_. Does it? 

\--- 

“I’ve been thinking-”  
  


“Heard that can get dangerous.”

Steve mock-glares at him, tears the edge off Bucky’s bread roll and shoves it in his mouth. “I’ve been thinking - what I said was dumb. I love you, Buck.”

Bucky shoves the rest of the bread roll in his mouth to avoid having to talk. 

“I love you,” Steve says again. “Do you think - me and you?”

Of course Bucky’s thought about it. Hand holding and chaste kisses and happiness. Who wouldn’t want that? 

And with Steve - but of course he’d never really dared-

“Long as you don’t try and push me down into your bed and have your way with me,” Bucky jokes, but it’s not funny and Steve’s swallowing sorta funny and why did he say that-

“You can, y’know, fuck other people?” he tries instead, and Steve looks horrified. 

“Why would I want to do that?”  
  


“‘Cause sex is incredible? Don’t take it from me, though.”

“No one but you,” Steve declares. “No one, never, Buck, I don’t care that you don’t, I’d never-”  
  


“I wouldn’t want you to miss out,” Bucky protests, and suddenly it’s the most passionate thing he’s ever said. “Stevie - if it’s really as good for… most people… wouldn’t you want to try it?”

“I don’t think it should be like that.”

“What?”

“Something you just ‘try’. Something you do just to have done it. For me, it’s tied up with love-”

“I can still love you,” Bucky snarls, and they’re both taken aback by it. “When I buy you new drawing paper, or I hold you when you’re sick, or you laugh and my chest hurts, that’s love, isn’t it?”

“I- I didn’t-” 

Steve’s eyes grow wide. “You love me?”

And Bucky has to laugh at that. He pretends to straighten out Steve’s bangs, just to touch him. “You’re really stupid sometimes, you know that?”

“But you love me anyway?”

“You’re a stupid jerk, but-”  
  


Steve clasps at his chest with a gasp.

“-but I love you, yes.”

“Love you too, Buck.”

  
_ It can’t be this easy_, Bucky thinks. But for now, it is.


	3. Chapter 3

_ Yeah_, Bucky thinks, _ life is good_. Not falling into some stranger's bed feeling nothing - instead waking up with Steve and loving and being loved in return. Yeah. He'd say he could get used to it, but he doesn't think he ever will.

\---

"Not even I'm capable of looking that good, Stevie," he says upon seeing Steve's latest drawing of him. "How'd you make my eyes look so nice?"

"They're your eyes," Steve replies, and Bucky smiles and kisses him.

"You're Mr. 'Baby-Blues' over here, you know. Man, if I could draw we'd have no space left. All the pictures I'd do of you."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, you bet."

"Go on, then?"

"I… I said 'if' I could draw!"

Steve's tickling him now, and they're both laughing. "Draw me!" Steve demands. "I dare you!"

"Fine, fine, jeez. You're gonna regret asking."

Steve blinks at the finished piece. "It's a fish," he says. 

Bucky puts a hand to his own chest, mock-offended. "Um, no, Steve. That's clearly your face."

Steve's open mouthed but not talking. "It's a good fish," he says finally. "I like the shading… I also sort of hate you, though…" 

That last part is said with a mock-glare. "Oh yeah?" Bucky goads.

Steve juts his chin out, and Bucky tries not to laugh. "Yeah," Steve replies, trying to deepen his voice to sound more "I-mean-business". 

This time Bucky does laugh, and Steve goes to tickle him again.

"I love you," he gasps out when Steve finally stops. "Jesus. I love you." 

\---

"Do you like it? I got off work early and Mary'd said there was this new cafe open near the park and I just thought-"

"I love it, Buck," Steve says, "thank you." 

But he hasn't eaten the last bite of his pastry. Bucky rolls his eyes. "Really? Your ass got full up on the last bite? I could eat that in a quarter of a quarter of a second."

"I know. That's why I saved it for you."

Bucky doesn't try to hide the blush that must be heating up cheeks. 

_ Yeah_, he thinks, _ life is good_.

\---

It's nice, too, when the girls flirt, or the guys, to be able to say, "Sorry - but I've got a fella waiting at home."

Let them draw their own conclusions. Him and Steve are no different to anyone else, just two guys in love. What they don't do in bed isn't anyone's business.

  
  


He likes saying it, too. It's got a ring to it. He says with the sort of tone that implies what he's really saying is, "Sorry - but I'm in love." 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
